We are planning to travel to Milan in 2023. We will be there about 5 or 6 days. We are looking to travel to Lake Como, Bellagio, Varenna (day trip), and Genoa. We would like to take a day tour to Switzerland (we were thinking of the Bernina Express train). We would like to have guides for our tours. What is the best official website for train tickets? What are some of the best reasonable price hotels in Milan? If you have flown to Italy in 2022, what tips or recommendations you suggest? We will leave Milan and travel to Florence by train and we would like to travel to Nice, France. If you have any information on tour companies (if you do not have information on tour guides. Thanks for your recommendations.
Posted by
5133 posts
Genoa is far for a day trip from Milan. You would be better off stopping en route to Florence.
For train travel within Italy, you have Trenitalia and Italotren.
Booking.com is a great resource for hotels.
What we always suggest is to consult a guide book first to have a sense of all of this as you plan your trip--good luck!
Posted by
San Francisco Bay Area (USA)
16165 posts
Trains:
www.trenitalia.com
Do you plan to visit Lake Como (Bellagio, Varenna) and Genoa from Milan on day trips? Unless you must be in Milan for some other reason (maybe a conference or something), I would recommend to spend at least 3 nights at the lake (Varenna or Bellagio is up to you, they are just minutes across via ferry). Genoa is not that close to Milan. It can be visited on a day trip, but it would be a lot of time on trains and very little left to see Genoa.
The Bernina Express is not too far from Varenna. You need to proceed with the same train a little more to the north, to the city of Tirano.
I don't think you would need a tour guide to visit those places. But I don't know any.
Posted by
417 posts
Have you considered an open jaw ticket? Fly into Nice and out of Florence, or something of the sort? Otherwise you will do a lot of backtracking with your intended destinations if flying in and out of Milan
Posted by
Sioux Falls, SD, USA
3113 posts
You will be in Italy for 5-6 days, and you want to go to 4-5 places. This is not going to be a fun trip. You will be doing nothing be going from one train station to another. Florence is a 3-4 day stop, Milan is a 2-3 day stop. You finish by saying that you wish to go to Nice. Is that included in the 5-6 days?
You need to sit with a guidebook, and determine what you will do in each city. Generally, experienced travelers find that 2-3 things can be done in a day. We were in Florence in Oct. We went to the Accademia D1, Uffizi and Pitti D2, and spent D3 walking around. D4 we left. Florence is about 2-3 hours from Milan.